Quick question about programming languages

[TheMaster]

I'm dedicating this next year to studying programming before I start my Ph.D. studies. Are these programming languages sufficient enough to be a competitive applicant for internships?

1. C++ (self-study)
2. Visual Basic (1 community college course + self-study)
3. Python (2 courses in community college)
4. Excel VBA (self-study)
5. SQL (self-study + microsoft certification sql server 2012)

I plan on taking C++ through the baruch program or going off some books on the master reading list. In addition, I plan on taking the microsoft certification for SQL.

 

[MRoss]

Yes!

 

[TheMaster]

Thanks MRoss!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Sounds ambitious but essential skills to have. I would probably drop 2) and make sure I got 1) and 5) nailed down by taking on some real-life projects such as getting your programs to read/import data from web API, store in database, do things with them and spit out reports in Excel.

 

[Polter]

Instead of VB.NET (I presume that's what you mean by Visual Basic, there's no point in learning VB6 nowadays) I think I'd recommend C# -- esp. since you're already planning to have VBA covered. A good final project (presumably one of many) might be to test if you can put these skills together -- e.g., XLL (or one many of, usually friendlier, wrappers, like XLW) to test your Excel with C++ -- and also VSTO (Excel-DNA might also be a good -- possibly better -- alternative) to test your Excel with C# dev skills.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Wow, this sounds just like what I did at work years ago (C#, SQL, Excel, VBA, VSTO, XLL). This should get OP started when he gets there https://www.quantnet.com/threads/how-to-create-udf-in-excel-using-c-and-visual-studio-2008.1260/

 

[TheMaster]

Instead of VB.NET (I presume that's what you mean by Visual Basic, there's no point in learning VB6 nowadays) I think I'd recommend C# -- esp. since you're already planning to have VBA covered. A good final project (presumably one of many) might be to test if you can put these skills together -- e.g., XLL (or one many of, usually friendlier, wrappers, like XLW) to test your Excel with C++ -- and also VSTO (Excel-DNA might also be a good -- possibly better -- alternative) to test your Excel with C# dev skills.

=( there was a c# class available but I didn't register for it because I didn't see it listed in many quantitative analyst job ads. As for VB, its VB 2010. I read a post on here about a quantitative risk modeler who used visual basic so that's why I took it.